Director Brian Taylor Talks GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE: Updates on Budget, Characters, Story, and is it a Direct Sequel?

The Nicolas Cage-starred Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance recently wrapped filming in Europe, and co-director Brian Taylor recently sat down and spoke at length about the project. While 2007’s Ghost Rider, starring Nicolas Cage, wasn’t necessarily met with an enthusiastic response, Taylor and co-director Mark Neveldine took a vastly different approach when they came on board for the sequel:

“We basically said, we want to do it, [would] absolutely love to do it, but it’s gotta be 100% different from the first movie, everything, except for Nic. We want the character to look different, feel different, sound different. The backstory of the character’s different, the origin of the story is expanded upon in ways that the first movie didn’t hint at, at all. The location’s different, the whole cast is different; the only thing that’s the same is Nic…It’s pretty much a reboot, only with the same actor, which makes it: a requel. Or a seboot, I can’t decide which one I like better.”

This definitely sounds like good news for fans who were unhappy with the first go-around. Hit the jump for more from Taylor on the project, including what attracted him to the film, his thoughts on villain Blackout, and when we can expect to see the first footage.

In an appearance on Think Hero’s For Your Consideration podcast, Taylor talked about what attracted him to the project in the first place:

“The first attraction was Nic and the second was the character and just how cool it could be. [I wanted to] kinda make the Ghost Rider movie that I wished I had seen before.”

Taylor also took a moment to address rumors of a larger-than-expected budget for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance:

“The reports of the budget of Ghost Rider have been greatly exaggerated. It’s about the same as [Gamer]. We didn’t have a lot of money to make this film…but we’re pretty creative. It’s gonna look fuckin’ huge.”

Finally, without giving too much away, Taylor talked about the villain Blackout making an appearance in the film (played by Johnny Whitworth, from Gamer), and revealed when to expect the first footage from the flick:

“[Blackout’s] a fun character. His powers are pretty cool, we did things with his powers that aren’t in the original comic books…We’re gonna do a huge splash at the Comic-Con. That’s when we really want people to see what the new, evolved Ghost Rider looks like as well as the first peeks at the villains.”

All in all, Taylor’s approach to the film actually sounds pretty promising. I guess we won’t really know until we see footage to get a feel for what the film will end up like. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance stars Nicolas Cage, Johnny Whitworth, Ciarán Hinds (Munich), Violante Placido (The American) and Idris Elba (TV’s The Wire) and is slated for a February 17th, 2012 release. To catch up on all of our Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance coverage, click here.

Here’s the video of the podcast. Taylor’s Ghost Rider talk begins around the 4:00 mark and lasts until about 10:10.